more buffy musings
Oct. 2nd, 2002 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanLong and a little ramble-y.
OK, let's break this down.
Good Vs. Evil
In the Jossverse, good and evil are not absolutes. Just as people mature from black-and-white viewpoints to seeing more shades of gray as they grow up, similarly the show has moved from "demons = bad / people = good" as the characters grew up. First season, we were supposed to believe that Angel was the only exception to this rule. As time wore on, we got more and more exceptions: Oz, the not-evil werewolf; the Mayor, the evil human, and of course Faith, the Slayer who embodies the internal, personal struggle between good and evil. In Season 4, Buffy puts all this together when she yells at Riley for assuming that all demons are evil. Anya harps on this point as well throughout S4 and S5; eventually we reach the point in S6 where a perfectly normal, doofy, harmless demon such as Clem can become a semi-regular. (Meanwhile, over on "Angel," they were hammering us with the point that some humans can be much more evil than any demon.)
Which brings us to Spike, who embodies the most troublesome aspect of the "what is good/what is evil" question. Spike is a vampire; he takes pleasure in killing. Once chipped, he finds all kinds of loopholes that allow him to continue hurting people. Meanwhile, though, he has more insight into the other characters than perhaps anyone else; as far back as "Lovers Walk" and probably earlier, he's telling them stuff about themselves that they need, but don't want, to hear. He also shows love for Dru and takes care of her, treats her gently and tenderly even when he's at his most evil. Cue Season 5: the Scooby gang has almost stopped thinking of Spike as a threat; they include him in their activities, rely on him for help in certain situations. Xander snarks at Spike in much the same way he did with Cordy throughout the first few seasons. By the end of S5, Buffy has almost come to trust Spike albeit in very limited, careful ways: she trusts him to watch after her mom and sister, she wants him at her back during the final battle. After she comes back from the dead, Spike is the only one who understands what she's going through, the only one she feels comfortable confiding in.
Is Spike still evil at this point (mid-S6)?
If not, when did he stop being evil? Was it when he got the chip? Clearly not, as he continued to hurt people with alacrity afterward. Was it when he realized he was in love with Buffy? Likely not, as the Jossverse has repeatedly told us that love is not enough to make up for one's crimes. Was it when he refused to tell Glory who the chip was? When he tried to save Dawn from Joel Grey? When he wept over Buffy's corpse? When he bandaged the reanimated Buffy's hands? When he listened to her confessions? When he fucked her?
And is Spike evil when he tries to rape Buffy in "Seeing Red"? Is it the act itself that is evil, or the intent to commit the act? Does repenting the act afterward, as I will argue (but not now) he did, mitigate the evil?
I think that the answer to all these questions is "it's not that simple." Good and evil are not the only choices; at most, they're the end-points on a continuum, a Kinsey scale of morality. Look at Anya: for a thousand years she did horrible things to men on behalf of their spurned women. Was she evil, or merely fulfilling a necessary function? Now that she's a demon again, having gone through everything she went through with Xander and the Scoobies -- "been there, done that, got the emotional scars" -- is she again evil, or just a person doing a job? What about Dawn, created for evil purposes but put into the form of something good and entrusted to the care of a good guy?
What about Buffy? Is she just plain good? What about Giles? What about Warren, was he just plain evil?
The point, again, is that nothing is so black-and-white as good vs. evil. The struggle is to find a balance, to recognize that people can do evil things and not be entirely evil or do good things and not be entirely good. Spike, I think, harbors no illusions that he is good. But nor does he think of himself as entirely evil.
The Soul
In the Jossverse, the soul is a tricky thing to understand. What is it exactly? Is it equivalent to the conscience? Clearly* not, as Spike was able to regret things he had done even before he got his soul back. And Angel, with his soul, has done things to regret. The precise nature, purpose, and function of the soul is really unclear. Spike obviously thought that getting his soul back would solve his problems and make him the kind of person Buffy could love; clearly he was wrong. In what way(s) *has* having his soul changed Spike? I guess that remains to be seen.
*Clear to me, anyway. YMMV.
So what is the soul? We still don't know. It is not the thing that separates an evil being from a good one. It might be the thing that makes a being human; but what, then, does that mean? That argument goes nowhere because all it does is substitute a different word.
When Angel got his soul back, he moped around for decades, wallowing in the egocentricity of his regrets for all his sins. He was consumed, supposedly, by guilt over his crimes, yet rather than stake himself and put an end to it, he skulked around eating rats and brooding. Eventually he came to feel -- with the help of Whistler's and Buffy's intervention -- that his soul could be used to advantage, as a tool to help people, and perhaps somehow to redeem himself. But let's not be fooled: Angel didn't seek his soul, and he didn't seek redemption. He didn't even know he wanted redemption until he met Buffy.
Spike, on the other hand, sought out his soul specifically *because* he wanted redemption. I don't think Spike sees his soul as a tool whose purpose is to help him help others; he's willing to help others, but only because, pragmatically, he recognizes that he's capable of doing so. (And perhaps because he thinks it will endear him to Buffy.) But Spike's goal overall was to become a better person via the acquisition of a soul. Does the fact that his desire to become a better person was motivated by love cheapen it? I would say not.
Which brings me to:
Love and Redemption
Love is another tricky thing in the Jossverse. Love does, and does not, absolve one of certain responsibilities. As I said above, Angel's love for Buffy is, we're to understand, a redemptive factor; it ennobles him somehow, makes him more and more important than he is. Without it he would probably still be eating rats in a gutter somewhere. Eventually Angel realizes that his love is destructive to Buffy and so he leaves her; and yet, certain events on the "Angel" series have shown, I think, that loving Buffy is still his ultimate goal or fantasy.
In the Jossverse, love is most often destructive. Buffy's love for Angel prevents her from killing Angelus and therefore leaves him free to cause mayhem. Willow's love for Oz causes her to wreak havoc in "Something Blue." Xander's love for Anya causes him to question his own value as a person and winds up making him hurt her. Giles loves Buffy (as a daughter/friend/protégée) but leaves her, causing her pain. Riley's love for Buffy turns him into a vampire whore when he realizes that Buffy doesn't reciprocate. Willow's love for Tara causes her to do abusive, invasive spells on Tara and eventually leads to Tara's death. Even Warren, I think, loved Katrina in his own selfish misogynistic way, and ended up killing her. And I don't even have to tell you what kinds of destruction, literal and figurative, were caused by Buffy and Spike's relationship.
So how can love be a force for redemption? Both Angel and Spike, in different ways and for different reasons, sought redemption as a result of their love for Buffy. I think Giles in many ways also sees his relationship with Buffy as redemptive for him. Loving Xander helped Anya to understand again what it meant to be human, whereas loving Anya helped Xander (for a while) to get over thinking of himself as the Zeppo. Loving Giles helped Jenny Calendar get on the path toward repentance for what her people had done to Angel (although she never got to finish that process). Perhaps love must be destructive in order to be instructive.
Buffy, meanwhile, is still learning how to integrate love with her Slayerness. She's gone through periods of thinking that a Slayer can never really be in love, then periods of *being* in love without questioning it, and then questioning it again. She wanted to love Riley but didn't/couldn't, perhaps because there would be no redemptive value in it for either of them. I think the arrival of Dawn in her life signifies a turning point where Buffy learns that it is possible to be the Slayer and to love another person completely. Season 6 held some lessons for her about mothering, sistering, and best-friending with Dawn; in the interim summer, obviously, she has started integrating those lessons by including Dawn in the fight. I believe that Buffy loves Spike in some ways, but she still has work to do before she can understand what that means and how to handle it.
Okay. That's a lot, and now I gotta get some work done. Good food for thought here. Can't wait to watch the episode again and see what else I can get out of it.
OK, let's break this down.
Good Vs. Evil
In the Jossverse, good and evil are not absolutes. Just as people mature from black-and-white viewpoints to seeing more shades of gray as they grow up, similarly the show has moved from "demons = bad / people = good" as the characters grew up. First season, we were supposed to believe that Angel was the only exception to this rule. As time wore on, we got more and more exceptions: Oz, the not-evil werewolf; the Mayor, the evil human, and of course Faith, the Slayer who embodies the internal, personal struggle between good and evil. In Season 4, Buffy puts all this together when she yells at Riley for assuming that all demons are evil. Anya harps on this point as well throughout S4 and S5; eventually we reach the point in S6 where a perfectly normal, doofy, harmless demon such as Clem can become a semi-regular. (Meanwhile, over on "Angel," they were hammering us with the point that some humans can be much more evil than any demon.)
Which brings us to Spike, who embodies the most troublesome aspect of the "what is good/what is evil" question. Spike is a vampire; he takes pleasure in killing. Once chipped, he finds all kinds of loopholes that allow him to continue hurting people. Meanwhile, though, he has more insight into the other characters than perhaps anyone else; as far back as "Lovers Walk" and probably earlier, he's telling them stuff about themselves that they need, but don't want, to hear. He also shows love for Dru and takes care of her, treats her gently and tenderly even when he's at his most evil. Cue Season 5: the Scooby gang has almost stopped thinking of Spike as a threat; they include him in their activities, rely on him for help in certain situations. Xander snarks at Spike in much the same way he did with Cordy throughout the first few seasons. By the end of S5, Buffy has almost come to trust Spike albeit in very limited, careful ways: she trusts him to watch after her mom and sister, she wants him at her back during the final battle. After she comes back from the dead, Spike is the only one who understands what she's going through, the only one she feels comfortable confiding in.
Is Spike still evil at this point (mid-S6)?
If not, when did he stop being evil? Was it when he got the chip? Clearly not, as he continued to hurt people with alacrity afterward. Was it when he realized he was in love with Buffy? Likely not, as the Jossverse has repeatedly told us that love is not enough to make up for one's crimes. Was it when he refused to tell Glory who the chip was? When he tried to save Dawn from Joel Grey? When he wept over Buffy's corpse? When he bandaged the reanimated Buffy's hands? When he listened to her confessions? When he fucked her?
And is Spike evil when he tries to rape Buffy in "Seeing Red"? Is it the act itself that is evil, or the intent to commit the act? Does repenting the act afterward, as I will argue (but not now) he did, mitigate the evil?
I think that the answer to all these questions is "it's not that simple." Good and evil are not the only choices; at most, they're the end-points on a continuum, a Kinsey scale of morality. Look at Anya: for a thousand years she did horrible things to men on behalf of their spurned women. Was she evil, or merely fulfilling a necessary function? Now that she's a demon again, having gone through everything she went through with Xander and the Scoobies -- "been there, done that, got the emotional scars" -- is she again evil, or just a person doing a job? What about Dawn, created for evil purposes but put into the form of something good and entrusted to the care of a good guy?
What about Buffy? Is she just plain good? What about Giles? What about Warren, was he just plain evil?
The point, again, is that nothing is so black-and-white as good vs. evil. The struggle is to find a balance, to recognize that people can do evil things and not be entirely evil or do good things and not be entirely good. Spike, I think, harbors no illusions that he is good. But nor does he think of himself as entirely evil.
The Soul
In the Jossverse, the soul is a tricky thing to understand. What is it exactly? Is it equivalent to the conscience? Clearly* not, as Spike was able to regret things he had done even before he got his soul back. And Angel, with his soul, has done things to regret. The precise nature, purpose, and function of the soul is really unclear. Spike obviously thought that getting his soul back would solve his problems and make him the kind of person Buffy could love; clearly he was wrong. In what way(s) *has* having his soul changed Spike? I guess that remains to be seen.
*Clear to me, anyway. YMMV.
So what is the soul? We still don't know. It is not the thing that separates an evil being from a good one. It might be the thing that makes a being human; but what, then, does that mean? That argument goes nowhere because all it does is substitute a different word.
When Angel got his soul back, he moped around for decades, wallowing in the egocentricity of his regrets for all his sins. He was consumed, supposedly, by guilt over his crimes, yet rather than stake himself and put an end to it, he skulked around eating rats and brooding. Eventually he came to feel -- with the help of Whistler's and Buffy's intervention -- that his soul could be used to advantage, as a tool to help people, and perhaps somehow to redeem himself. But let's not be fooled: Angel didn't seek his soul, and he didn't seek redemption. He didn't even know he wanted redemption until he met Buffy.
Spike, on the other hand, sought out his soul specifically *because* he wanted redemption. I don't think Spike sees his soul as a tool whose purpose is to help him help others; he's willing to help others, but only because, pragmatically, he recognizes that he's capable of doing so. (And perhaps because he thinks it will endear him to Buffy.) But Spike's goal overall was to become a better person via the acquisition of a soul. Does the fact that his desire to become a better person was motivated by love cheapen it? I would say not.
Which brings me to:
Love and Redemption
Love is another tricky thing in the Jossverse. Love does, and does not, absolve one of certain responsibilities. As I said above, Angel's love for Buffy is, we're to understand, a redemptive factor; it ennobles him somehow, makes him more and more important than he is. Without it he would probably still be eating rats in a gutter somewhere. Eventually Angel realizes that his love is destructive to Buffy and so he leaves her; and yet, certain events on the "Angel" series have shown, I think, that loving Buffy is still his ultimate goal or fantasy.
In the Jossverse, love is most often destructive. Buffy's love for Angel prevents her from killing Angelus and therefore leaves him free to cause mayhem. Willow's love for Oz causes her to wreak havoc in "Something Blue." Xander's love for Anya causes him to question his own value as a person and winds up making him hurt her. Giles loves Buffy (as a daughter/friend/protégée) but leaves her, causing her pain. Riley's love for Buffy turns him into a vampire whore when he realizes that Buffy doesn't reciprocate. Willow's love for Tara causes her to do abusive, invasive spells on Tara and eventually leads to Tara's death. Even Warren, I think, loved Katrina in his own selfish misogynistic way, and ended up killing her. And I don't even have to tell you what kinds of destruction, literal and figurative, were caused by Buffy and Spike's relationship.
So how can love be a force for redemption? Both Angel and Spike, in different ways and for different reasons, sought redemption as a result of their love for Buffy. I think Giles in many ways also sees his relationship with Buffy as redemptive for him. Loving Xander helped Anya to understand again what it meant to be human, whereas loving Anya helped Xander (for a while) to get over thinking of himself as the Zeppo. Loving Giles helped Jenny Calendar get on the path toward repentance for what her people had done to Angel (although she never got to finish that process). Perhaps love must be destructive in order to be instructive.
Buffy, meanwhile, is still learning how to integrate love with her Slayerness. She's gone through periods of thinking that a Slayer can never really be in love, then periods of *being* in love without questioning it, and then questioning it again. She wanted to love Riley but didn't/couldn't, perhaps because there would be no redemptive value in it for either of them. I think the arrival of Dawn in her life signifies a turning point where Buffy learns that it is possible to be the Slayer and to love another person completely. Season 6 held some lessons for her about mothering, sistering, and best-friending with Dawn; in the interim summer, obviously, she has started integrating those lessons by including Dawn in the fight. I believe that Buffy loves Spike in some ways, but she still has work to do before she can understand what that means and how to handle it.
Okay. That's a lot, and now I gotta get some work done. Good food for thought here. Can't wait to watch the episode again and see what else I can get out of it.
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What I find interesting...
Date: 2002-10-02 03:42 pm (UTC)Spike, on the other hand, was brooding and romantic and an amusing outsider in his original life. When his soul is returned to him, all of that remains but he does not gain the purely redemption-seeking qualities that Angel had. Why? Angel's original-soul gap was in the realm of gravitas - he had none, so he gained it. Spike's original-soul gap was in the realm of romantic attachment - he had none, so he gained it. The redemptive impulse for Spike has been sublimated into romantic love. I suspect that this means he won't have Angel's flaw of a divided psyche - Buffy-loving on the one hand, world-defending on the other. Spike's psyche will have both in the same place, i.e., "what she deserves."
And there you have it.